Doumu Palace sits just up the staircase from Red Gate, a small Daoist nunnery dedicated to the Northern Dipper Mother — the deity from whom, in Daoist cosmology, the stars of the Big Dipper are said to descend. The temple was rebuilt in the seventeenth century around a much older site, and the courtyards are shaded by ancient cypresses.
It is the easiest of the lower-mountain temples to look around, and quieter than Dai Temple in the city. A useful first rest stop on the climb: the steps to this point are gentle, the worst of the staircase is still ahead.